Among the new releases to reach the top 30 on the sales chart this week, there were two that were in a relatively close race for first place. At least it was close compared to the third place film. Coming out on top was Red with 1.12 million units sold for $15.07 million in opening week consumer spending.
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It's bit of an oddball week on the home market. There are four first-run releases, if you include The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Granted, that film was a limited release, but it did earn more than $5 million, and it appears to be selling quite well, especially for a foreign language film. On the other hand, none seem like they will be particularly impressive in terms of sales. Of the four biggest releases, Red on Blu-ray is the best bet, but for Pick of the Week, I'm going with Broadcast News: Criterion Collection on Blu-ray.
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Saw VII is reportedly the last installment in the six-year old franchise. Seven films in six years is impressive, as is the total worldwide box office of $850 million on a total production budget of less than 10% of that. (The final installment cost the most at $20 million, probably due in large part to the 3D effects.) The previous film earned good reviews, at least compared to the franchise's average. So was the film able to build on that critical success, or did it sink to the levels we saw in Saw V?
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I maintained its lead on top of the international box office chart; however, it saw its weekend haul sliced in half to $57.12 million on 14,188 screens in 62 markets for a total of $473.52 million internationally and $718.04 million worldwide. It became just the 43rd film to reach $700 million worldwide, while it will shortly overtake Up for 40th place overall.
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For the second weekend in a row, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I was able to top $100 million on the international box office chart, adding $115.62 million on 16,093 screens in 61 markets for a total of $386.10 million internationally and $605.16 million worldwide. It became only the 56th film to reach $600 million worldwide, and some analysts are now predicting $1 billion is more likely than not.
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I broke records on the international chart opening with a mind-blowing $192.98 million on 15,506 screens in 53 markets, for a total opening of $204.92 million internationally and $329.94 million worldwide. This is the largest worldwide opening ever, and it is enough to put the film in the top 200 after one weekend of release.
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Unstoppable opened in first place on the international box office over the weekend. (It has likely already fallen to Harry Potter on the daily chart, which opened on Wednesday.) Its opening weekend haul was $18.72 million on 4137 screens in 39 markets giving it a total opening of $19.31 million. It earned first place in Spain with $1.56 million on 336 screens, but was not as potent in South Korea or Germany earning third place with $1.33 million on 323 screens and $1.20 million on 504 respectively. It only managed fourth place in France, with $2.63 million on 430 screens, while it barely squeezed into the top five in Italy with $755,000 on 251.
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Unlike its domestic debut, Due Date was able to open in first place internationally with $21.69 million on 3572 screens in 32 markets. It was tops in Germany with $3.90 million on 519 screens, while it also led the way in the U.K. with $3.78 million on 449 screens. On the other hand, it had to settle for second place in Russia, but with $3.88 million on 543 screens, it was still a huge success there. In comparison, the cumulative opening weekend was nearly identical to The Hangover, which bodes well for the film's chances internationally, even if it likely won't have the same long legs.
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While practically every film in the top five missed expectations, none of them were complete misses and all made enough that they could be considered victories. The overall box office was an incredibly healthy $151 million, which was 59% higher than last weekend and 26% higher than the same weekend last year. In fact, it came within $2 million of the record for the opening weekend of November. 2010 was able to put more distance between it and 2009 and it now leads the year-to-date race $8.97 billion to $8.66 billion. It would take a fairly major collapse for 2010 to not break the record for highest box office, although it will likely fail to top last year in terms of ticket sales.
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November could start on a high note with three wide releases poised to open one-two-three. If all three films only manage to reach just the midpoint of expectations, then the month will start with a big win year-over-year, as last year three of the four new releases struggled. If they reach the high end of expectations, then the top three films this week will earn more than the top ten films did last year. Even low end expectations has this year's likely number one film, MegaMind, topping last year's number one film, A Christmas Carol. The only bad news is the lack of depth, as none of the holdovers are poised to do much business. They are either pump and dumps, or have been in theaters so long that they are no longer a real factor.
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Thanks in part to holidays in France, Despicable Me was able to return to top spot with $21.65 million on 4511 screens in 44 markets for a total of $234.58 million internationally and $482.46 million worldwide. By this time next week, it will have more internationally than domestically and a total of more than half-a-billion worldwide. Its top market was France, where school holidays helped it more than double its take at $6.17 million on 657 screens, but that's for the 5-day weekend. Overall it has made $19.80 million in that market. It opened in second place in Japan with $2.93 million on 225 screens over the weekend and $3.12 million in total. It was flat in the U.K. adding another $4.15 million on 532 screens for a three week total of $24.21 million.
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As expected, Halloween hurt the overall box office, which plummeted 27% from last weekend to just $95 million from Friday to Sunday. However, the top film on the chart did do better than expected on Sunday, while the overall box office was 5% higher than the same weekend last year when Halloween fell on a Saturday. Year-to-date, 2010 still has a 3% lead over 2009 with a running tally of $8.78 billion, while there's very little time left to blow that lead. On the other hand, ticket sales are down 2%, so there's little hope to catch up in that regard.
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With an estimated 92% of box office receipts coming from 3D shows, Saw 3D became the highest-grossing horror franchise in history this weekend, overtaking Friday the 13th.
Its $22.4 million opening is still down from the peak for the franchise, which topped $30 million on four occasions, but is up significantly from the disappointing $14.1 million debut of Saw VI last year.
(See full franchise history here.)
Paranormal Activity 2, meanwhile had a steep drop to $16.5 million in its second weekend, although 59% isn't terrible for the genre, and the low-budget sequel has racked up over $65 million in just 10 days.
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Halloween falls on Sunday this year, and is generally a bad day at the box office, which will likely result in a massive drop-off for most films this weekend. However, there is one horror film opening wide, plus another that opened last weekend that could benefit. The overall effect will still likely be negative, but this time last year, Halloween fell on a Saturday, which is a lot worse for business. So 2010 could still come out on top in the year-over-year comparison, even if it is a close race.
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There's only one wide release next week, Saw VII 3D and to celebrate, we are giving away two B-movie DVDs. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Saw VII 3D.

Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of The Slumber Party Massacre Collection on DVD.

September is nearly over and the Fall box office season is about to begin in earnest.
September wasn't too bad this year, with more films matching or exceeding expectations than missing them, and we managed to keep pace with last year, more or less.
Can October do the same? Well, last year there was only one $100 million hit, Couples Retreat (not counting Paranormal Activity, which opened in September). We might not see any film hit $100 million this time around.
In fact, we might not even see any that come all that close.
On the other hand, there were also five wide releases that clearly bombed last year, and on that end, 2010 looks a lot better.
Not every film that opens over the next five weekends will be a mid-level hit or better, but most should get there.
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The shaded area represents the expected performance range for a film, based on its opening weekend box office. 95% of films fall within the shaded area. If a film trends towards the top end of the shaded area, it has good legs compared to the average film; if it trends towards the bottom end of the shaded area, it has poor legs. The predictive area is based on movies from the past 5 years.

Full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, TV and ancillary revenue
are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.